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1. (Re)Engaging Novice Online Learners in an Educational Programming Game

   Lee, Michael J (January 2020, Journal of computing sciences in colleges)

   Many people are learning programming on their own using various online resources such as educational games. Unfortunately, little is known about how to keep online educational game learners motivated throughout their game play, especially if they become disengaged or frustrated with their task. Keeping online learners engaged is essential for learning programming, as it may have lasting effects on their views and self-efficacy towards computer science. To address this issue, we created a coarse-grained frustration detector that provided users with customized, adaptive feedback to help (re)engage them with the game content. We ran a controlled experiment with 400 participants over the course of 1.5 months, with half of the players playing the original game, and the other half playing the game with the frustration detection and adaptive feed- back. We found that the users who received the adaptive feedback when frustrated completed more levels than their counterparts who did not receive this customized feedback. Based on these findings, we believe that adaptive feedback is essential in keeping educational game learners engaged, and propose future work for researchers and designers of online educational games to better support their users. 

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2. Autonomy-Supportive Game Benefits Both Inexperienced and Experienced Programmers

   https://doi.org/doi/abs/10.5555/3503984.3503993  

   Lee, Michael J.; Shen, Ruiqi (January 2021, Journal of computing sciences in colleges)

   As more people turn to discretionary online tools to learn new skills such as computer programming, exploring how to better support a wide range of learners is becoming increasingly essential to train the next generation of highly skilled technology workers. In our prior work, users with high learner autonomy complained that most online resources they used to learn more programming did not provide them with the flexibility they preferred to navigate through learning materials, locking them into a set sequence of topics/concepts. To explore this, we implemented a level-jumping feature into an online educational programming game. We tested it with 350 new users, tracking their progress through the game for 7 days each. We found that those with high learner autonomy did use the level jumping feature more than those with low learner autonomy. We also found that males were more likely to use this new feature, regardless of learner autonomy level, compared to their female counterparts. Finally, we found that those with low learner autonomy ultimately completed more levels than their high autonomy counterparts, and that this was particularly true of female learners (who completed the most levels overall). Based on these findings, we believe that autonomous-supportive features such as flexible navigation may be beneficial to all users of online educational tools, and that encouraging its use by a wider group of users (particularly females), may increase positive effects. 

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3. Educational Game Design: An Empirical Study of the Effects of Narrative

   Jemmali, C.; Bunian, S.; Mambretti, A.; Seif El-Nasr, M. (August 2018, Foundations of Digital Games)

   Integrating narrative elements into a game is a key element in de- signing an immersive experience. Narrative has been hypothesized to improve engagement, motivation, and learning within educational environments. While empirical results have been produced to show that narrative enhances engagement and motivation, its effects on learning were shown to either be insignificant or negative. We, there- fore, aim to address the question of how to integrate narrative in a game to improve learning. We address this through the design of May’s Journey, an educational game that teaches basic programming concepts where a story is integrated. The game design seamlessly integrates learning goals, core mechanic and narrative elements. In this paper, we discuss the game design as well as a study we con- ducted to compare two game versions, one with rich narrative and the other with light narrative. Results demonstrate that participants who interacted with the rich narrative version had fewer program- ming errors and increased engagement within the game. We present our contributions in the form of educational design principles for narrative integration supported by our study and results. 

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4. SecTutor: An Intelligent Tutoring System For Secure Programming

   Ngambeki, I.; Bishop, M.; Dai, J.; Nico, P.; Mian, S.; Thao, O.; Huynh, T. N.; Chance, Z.; Al-hasan, I.; and Afolabi, M. (June 2022, IFIP advances in information and communication technology)

   Drevin, L.; Miloslavskaya, N.; Leung, W. S.; von Solms, S. (Ed.)

   SecTutor is a tutoring system that uses adaptive testing to select instructional modules that allow users to pursue secure programming knowledge at their own pace. This project aims to combat one of the most significant cybersecurity challenges we have today: individuals’ failure to practice defensive, secure, and robust programming. To alleviate this, we introduce SecTutor, an adaptive online tutoring system, to help developers understand the foundational concepts behind secure programming. SecTutor allows learners to pursue knowledge at their own pace and according to their own interests, based on assessments that identify and structure educational modules based on their current level of understanding. 

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5. SecTutor: An Intelligent Tutoring System for Secure Programming

   Ngambeki, I.; Bishop, M.; Dai, J.; Nico, P.; Mian, S.; Thao, O.; Huynh, T. N.; Chance, Z.; Isslam Alhasan, I.; Motunrola Afolabi, M. (June 2022, IFIP advances in information and communication technology)

   Drevin, L.; Natalia Miloslavskaya, N.; Leung, W. S.; von Solms, S. (Ed.)

   SecTutor is a tutoring system that uses adaptive testing to select instructional modules that allow users to pursue secure programming knowledge at their own pace. This project aims to combat one of the most significant cybersecurity challenges we have today: individuals’ failure to practice defensive, secure, and robust programming. To alleviate this, we introduce SecTutor, an adaptive online tutoring system, to help developers understand the foundational concepts behind secure programming. SecTutor allows learners to pursue knowledge at their own pace and according to their own interests, based on assessments that identify and structure educational modules based on their current level of understanding. 

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